Are you sure that you're correctly assessing yourself, especially with respect to "answer everything, get 6-7 questions wrong"? There's a big gap between being able to do that, and having to guess on 6 LR questions. Maybe you weren't testing yourself under true testing conditions.

Pretty much -- a vast majority of my preptests (timed/full + 1 "exp" section) were 171-174. The newer tests (2004 onwards) threw me on a loop and I got a couple of 165s, but for the most part stayed within that range.

Preptest scores only matter so much though, heh -- Sept07 proved I have *wayyy* more I need to work on. (Taking a month-long break, but am doing a per-test dissection question by question starting from Prep 7 onwards, starting November.)

I think another reason was that I was more careful about this one. During preptests I just go through the test without thinking twice, but this time I was double-checking things to make sure I got the right answer, wasn't misbubbling, etc. I think that's where the lack of time killed me. (Especially on LG!! I normally would've just blazed through that first linear, but damn if I didn't double-check everything to make sure it was correct. sigh)

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And yep, you're young. It's not the end of the world. Just the start!

That's what I'm telling myself . I guess one upside (downside?) to all this -- I'll be on LSD for yet another year!

Every single timed preptest I've taken has been: answer everything, get 6-7 questions wrong. A bit more, a bit less. But all hinging on the fact that I get through everything and just miss stupid questions along the way.

During the actual test I totally felt out of it, couldn't sleep the night before/was nauseous during the exam (I think it's cause I hadn't been eating properly the few days before), couldn't concentrate properly, and completely guessed -- as in bubbled blindly -- on 6 LR questions (that's down to 174, max). The last game I completely just blazed through and missed the last 4 problems (I'd never not finished a game section before! ). With my normal 6-7 wrong, I would've been *very* lucky to break 170. And I don't want to hinge my entire law school prospects on luck -- I think, realistically, I was looking more at 163-165.

Was depressed for about a day, then I realized I'm still young, still very much enjoy the job I have now, have plenty of time, and instead of rushing off the rest of my application (LORs, essays, none of which I'd done) between now and November I have a full year to work on it and a full 9 months to prep for the next test (am taking it in June). I also know I hadn't prepped to my full 100% -- was still missing stupid questions the week before the test, time-suckers still bogging me down, had 15 or so more preptests I hadn't done. So maybe it's all for the better?

I'm done studying...can't cram anything more in my head at this point. Just doing some section by section LRs for practice, but really can't do any more full tests until the real thing. (And I figure -- bombing a preptest 2 days before the exam is NOT the best way to go in there.) (Also, I'm one to always prep for the worst case scenario, which at this point would be taking it again in June -- I'm saving a few preptests for that, since the benefits I'll gain from them at this point are far outweighed by the benefits I'd gain from them in June in case I have to take the mother f-in test again)

Just need to repeat my LR performance from the Dec 05 ptest on the real thing...then f$%# this all to hell, I'm burning all my xeroxed preptests and starting a bonfire

I have developed a pattern in logical reasoning that is destroying my score. On my last few tests I am getting around 5 of the easy questions (first 10) wrong and then 2-3 wrong on the rest of the difficult qeuestions. I am also changing my answers on the difficult questions from right to wrong when I have extra time left. Today I changed 2 out of the 3 hard questions from right to wrong and on my last test I did the same but it was more extreme, something like 5. These mistakes are whats keeping me from 170 and I have no tests left to practice with.

What should I do to correct this problem?

Dude, I could've written that exact same post. I got a -6 on an LR section a few preptests ago (my lowest for an LR section since I started studying), and *2* of them were from the first 10. Yipes.

I took another LR last night though, Dec 2005, and got -0. I think I've figured it out: I'm not used to thinking in the morning.

(That sounds silly I know, but a) all my studying had been done at nights; b) all my preptests until 2 weeks ago were done at nights; c) I'd never taken a college class earlier than 9:30/10; d) my work today usually doesn't kick up until 10:30/11).

Do you think that'd apply to you as well? Maybe you're just not used to taking tests in the morning, and the first 10 questions/first LR section maybe your head's not fully out of it yet?

To those of you getting crazy score fluctuations -- have you thought of whether it's because you've started practicing on mornings?

After getting a ridiculous -6 wrong on one LR section a few days ago (I think it was June 05), I was ready to throw it down and burn the damn thing to all hell. But I took back to back LR sections (Dec 05) last night before bed), and score: -0.

For me I think I've figured it out...I am not used to using my brain in the morning, let alone using it for high-level logic LSAT stuff. I think it partially explains the crazy scores -- all my preptests up to this point had been done after work (at night), all my studying had been after work (at night), and my preptests started going down after I started doing them at 8 am in the morning. It also probably explains why my first LR section is almost always lower than the second (and that -6 LR was my first section of the test/day). (And throughout college I'd never had a class earlier than 9:30, let alone 8. Further corroboration?)

Maybe you guys getting crazy scores should consider the time difference as well...

So now I guess I have a new problem -- how the f*&$ do I solve this? I'm thinking of waking up at 4:30/5 test day, coffeeing myself up, exercising, doing a section/logic game before heading out to the test so hopefully my head's up by the time I get there. Any suggestions?

I've been getting -0/-1 on RC up til 2004ish, then it dropped down to -4/-5. Now I'm back to -2/-3ish; hoping to getting it back up to my previous levels by testday (bootcamp til 2 days before for the win imo).

My advice: engage yourself in the reading, whether that means drawing lines, writing notes to yourself in the margins, etc. That's what's made the biggest difference for me. In previous RCs (prior to 2004) I could just breeze through the passage and answer the questions without having to refer back (unless they refer to specific lines, etc), and still usually get -0. However with the newer ones they've definitely cranked up the difficulty, specifically with the answer choices -- more and more of them seem correct than before.

So I started engaging myself -- ie reading as if I'd read through a contract that I have to dissect for work, etc. Underlining important words, concepts, writing small notes to myself, etc. Note that I don't actually use these underlines and notes to refer back to when attacking the questions, but rather just to emphasize to myself subconscsciously the main points as I'm reading. It's helped a lot -- the questions I'm missing now are mostly of the *foreheadslap* variety or cause of time constraints (damned 27-question RC sections).

Hope that helps. Good luck -- and if you can spare me any tips for LR, feel free to offer them hehe

I've been seriously considering postponing this past week (after my scores decided to go batsh*t crazy on me), and came as close as having the phone to my ear and the number in front of me. But I realized a few things:

- There's no prepwork that can come close to taking the real thing.

You can take as much preptests as you want, take as much proctored simulations, but there's nothing like actually being there to know how you'll do. This is far from advocating as taking it as a practice run but rather just knowing the reality that, as seriously as you take the test when you're holed up in your room or in Kaplan/Testmasters with the rest of your class, it's always going to be different from how you'd be on the actual day. Maybe you'll score less than your practice scores. Maybe you'll score more (adrenalin rush, etc). It happens. But the fact is, you won't know until you take it.

- If you take the test, you'll know what you need to work on.

Maybe you'll bomb the LG, or miss all the Flaw questions on LR. Or maybe you'll realize that, as much as you try to skip those timewasters during prep, they really bog you down the actual thing. This goes in addition to what I said above -- you really can't know your full testing weaknesses til you take the actual test, knowing that it's the real thing, and seeing how you perform.

Of course this is all just in my opinion, and maybe this is just taking out loud to make myself feel confident about not postponing (actually that's what it probably primarily is, haha). But I think there's something to be said about taking the actual test -- even if you postpone til December, (presuming you've put the study time in) you'll be at this same spot 3 days before the test, not knowing how you'll do or whether you've had enough study. At least if you take it now you'll know what you need to work on and hammer on that, while maintaing your other areas, til December.